Day 295: The ‘T’ Word and Stopgap “Solutions”
Warning: long post ahead, as the weekend is upon us — ed.
Update: $600m stopgap bill passes both houses, indications are governor will sign.
- (1) $20,107,300 -Chicago State University
- (2) $6,974,400 — Governors State University
- (3) $74,142,300- Illinois Community College Board
- (4) $6,000,000 -Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
- (5) $10,695,100 — Northeastern Illinois University
- (6) $57,482,200 — Southern Illinois University
- (7) $168,989,500 — University of Illinois
- (8) $11,104,600 — University of Illinois, Hospital
- (9) $12,456,500 — Eastern Illinois University
- (10) $20,934,900 — Illinois State University
- (11) $169,798,700 — Illinois Student Assistance Commission, MAP Awards
- (12) $26,403,200 — Northern Illinois University
- (13) $14,911,400 — Western Illinois University.
The ‘T’ word
Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis mentioned ISIS and alleged Governor Bruce Rauner in the same sentence on Wednesday, April 20, and now there’s a storm of concern about the statement.
Bruce Rauner is a liar. And, you know, I’ve been reading in the news lately all about these ISIS recruits popping up all over the place — has Homeland Security checked this man out yet? Because the things he’s doing look like acts of terror on poor and working-class people.
Here’s the context for Lewis’ ISIS reference:
“I think he’s holding people hostage. Who does that? You hold people hostage. You hold defenseless children, babies, infants, you hold defenseless mothers who are brand-new, you hold people who are disabled hostage. Because you can’t get something else you want to have, that has nothing to do with a budget? You know, I mean, it’s ideological. That’s terrorism, that is pure … terrorism.”
I’ve covered this topic before. Rauner himself has used the hostage metaphor on several occasions, aiming it at the Legislature.
But you don’t truly get a sense of how outrageous this budget hostage situation is until you realize that the demands of Illinois’ alleged Governor and his minority party in the Legislature have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with appropriations for this year’s budget.
His “Turnaround Agenda” certainly has nothing to do with the epileptic in need of assistance with treatment, the addict seeking rehabilitation, the youth offender who needs education and hope more than a stint in adult prison, the elderly person who can’t make their own meals at home, or the pregnant woman who needs help understanding Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And the “Turnaround Agenda” has nothing whatsoever to do with keeping the doors open at the state’s institutions of higher education.
I try mightily to avoid using the word “terrorism” regarding this entire ordeal, because it’s a hot-button word that lets bad actors clutch their pearls and say things like this:
“This kind of rhetoric has no place in American public discourse and sets a terrible example for our kids,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said in a statement.
The GOP was also all over the quote trying to raise money for the party. Her comment even earned an “oh, please” from Rich Miller.
The thing is, she’s not totally wrong. Here’s the statutory definition of domestic terrorism.
I don’t use the term terrorism to describe what alleged Governor Rauner is doing only because he doesn’t use outright violent means to achieve his political aims. But “Appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population?” Yep. “To influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion”? Yep. The closest word I could find to describe this type of political gamesmanship is extortion.
And the thousands of citizens across this state who have been laid off, had family laid off, been denied services or had a loved one denied services, or any citizen who has had to worry whether they’ll be next can attest to the psychological violence this fiasco has inflicted upon them.
By the way, just to help out Rauner and his spokesperson, I made a handy list of some things that set terrible examples for our kids.
- Holding a state budget hostage for 294 days because the overwhelmingly opposition legislature won’t bow to your desires.
- Galavanting around the state taking selfies with junior and senior high school students, tweeting that “Every student in IL deserves a world class education” while you have left the state’s entire higher education system to twist in the wind for an entire academic year.
- Denying desperately needed funds to social service agencies in county after county across the state for almost an entire year while you send memos out telling executive branch employees that you’ll fight any effort to stop paychecks from flowing because they are not “second class citizens.”
- Lying directly to the citizens of this state about your desire for bipartisan solutions to the budget crisis when you mean no such thing.
- Vetoing bill after bill that would provide appropriations for all state operations and acting like you’re not the single person who’s holding up a 2016 budget.
Those are truly terrible examples for our kids.
The Stopgap “Solution”
If you want to follow what’s going on with the flurry of recent activity by legislators and the governor to make it look like they actually want to do their jobs, I suggest you go to Capitol Fax or follow them or the several other statehouse reporters on Twitter.
For a more analytical view, I’m going to leave you with this, from a concerned supporter of Eastern Illinois University (lightly edited and any emphasis is mine):
Any “budget” for higher ed after today will require revenue, as this plan will largely exhaust the funds set aside for education. At best the EAF ends up with another 150M beyond the budget office projections we are legislating on today. The EAF is nearly gone — only sweeps, prioritized payments from general revenue, or taxes will bring the rest of FY16.
Even if taxes are discussed, and by some miracle passed, it isn’t like those taxes will apply retroactively to FY16. So even a hike in taxes (which is unlikely anytime soon) probably won’t bring the rest of FY16 monies for higher ed.
The governor will have gotten the cuts he wanted and more. Democrats will have gotten the cuts they deserve for not passing tax increases in the lame duck session.
Illinois higher ed will now be dramatically weakened as several schools have blown through their reserves and are now vulnerable to fluctuations in enrollment, etc., even more than before. Where some of these universities could weather bumps with cash or investing in new attractive programs, they will increasingly do so by firing workers, increasing class sizes, firing faculty, and trimming programs.
These are all things they’ve already done, but the future without a FY16 appropriation, or much in reserves, will be one in which the administrative anxiety over it will be expressed by cutting where it is easiest. Simplistic and shortsighted management will prevail, and education and the quality of it will be harmed.
Few will notice immediately, but it will accrue and once fine programs and schools will fade.
The best shot of getting the rest of the money (for 2016) is probably a larger appropriation in FY17 to make up for it. However, I cannot see a political future where EIU gets nearly 75M over FY17. There will be too many competing needy programs in Illinois devastated by the incompetence of Springfield.
The current state of affairs is an agenda that Illinois chose, maybe unwittingly, but still chose, in 2014, and Illinois is stuck with it well through FY17. And people can complain all they want about Rauner’s and the Republicans’ agenda, but the long erosion of higher ed has been on Democrats’ agenda too. To deny that is to be swept away by hollow rhetoric and to ignore their legislative record of walking back funds for higher ed in this state and beyond.
Democrats may be standing in the breech now, and that may make them defenders of higher ed, but it certainly doesn’t make them champions or friends of higher ed. They are not. Higher ed is all too easy for them to cut for other interests they serve. It is easy to cut because the gap can be made up on the backs of students via loans that they feel they must take to have a future, but that they rarely fully grasp the future cost of when they take them.
And higher education and a better future becomes ever more just a gamble students take with debt risk, rather than an investment we adults make in our next generation’s future from our frequently far more stable positions in life.
Both parties are by no means the same, that’d be delusional to contend, but neither truly wants to invest in higher ed. It’d be productive for large lobbies to realize that politicians don’t serve interests they know are in their pockets. It’d also serve the political Right to realize they’d be well served to be a viable option rather than hostile opponent of higher education.
In the end, today, nobody should be proud, relieved, heartened, or God help us “positive,” about stop-gap funding.
We should all be ashamed briefly, and then infuriated and vigilant until we force change.
